Posted on July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump’s war on wind energy has run into a number of legal roadblocks over the last year and a half, making it increasingly difficult for the administration to deliver on his promise to prevent any new wind farms from being built during his second term.
So earlier this spring, the Interior Department came up with a creative way to stifle wind energy development: buying back leases previously awarded to energy companies.
These effective buyout agreements, which the administration has framed as “reimbursements,” have been quite successful thus far, killing nine future wind farms on the East and West coasts to the tune of $2.7 billion.
